


Story Time Smiles

by ABrighterDarkness



Series: PoTS Stocking Exchange [11]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:55:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21656353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ABrighterDarkness/pseuds/ABrighterDarkness
Summary: Neither Tony or Steve are able to find sleep, Tony asks for a story.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: PoTS Stocking Exchange [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1626244
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19
Collections: POTS (18+) Stony Stocking 2019





	Story Time Smiles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [muchmoremajestic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/muchmoremajestic/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [muchmoremajestic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/muchmoremajestic/pseuds/muchmoremajestic) in the [stony_stocking_2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/stony_stocking_2019) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Discord handle: vrose23 #6796
> 
> Short prompts: Don't want to get out of bed; shopping together; listening to music
> 
> Long prompts: 
> 
> 1\. Steve still feels out of place in the future. Tony takes him around town to get more familiar with the city Steve grew up in. They bond.
> 
> 2\. As part of a team building exercise, Steve and Tony are paired together to complete an escape room. But as clever as they both are, they struggle with it. 
> 
> 3\. Tony and Steve are the only two awake at the tower/compound, both stuck on difficult problems. They realize the other is up, and find ways to distract themselves.
> 
> Untaggable things: tsum tsums
> 
> DNW: Non-con, end of Endgame canon, major violence/abuse, character death, underage
> 
> Types of gifts: Anything is welcome - fic, art, moodboards, music playlists, meta, etc.

The leather of the reinforced punching bag split and bathed the padded floor in a rainfall of sand. Steve sighed heavily, shoulders dropping and his mind wandered for a moment, he probably couldn’t have explained where it went had someone actually asked. Not that anyone was there to notice. Thankfully. 

Resolutely ignoring his wandering thoughts, he focused pointedly on unwrapping his hands. And then on cleaning up the mess of sand and discarding the broken bag. He didn’t _have_ to clean up the mess. Tony had reassured him, repeatedly, that there were people specifically paid to clean up the Tower. But the clean up was less about _cleaning_ and more about destroying the evidence of his own unsettled state of mind. It wouldn’t help anyone to leave a sandy trail of broken bags that led right back to his fracturing sanity. 

He ran a restless hand through his hair, barely sweaty considering the bag had broken before he could really push himself to break a sweat and he really had no motivation to dig out another and go through the same cycle. Steve looked around the gym blankly. Was he trying to find the next target for his late-night distraction binge? He shook his head sharply to rid the encroaching negative thoughts.

“Captain Rogers.”

Steve fought the instinctive flinch and exhaled heavily, “Yes, JARVIS?”

“Sir has requested that you join him in his lab.”

“He’s up?” Steve asked, blinking in surprise.

“Indeed.”

“Stupid question,” Steve agreed with a slightly fond grin. Of  _ course _ Tony was up. Tony seemed to sleep as much as Steve did--which was to say not much at all. Only when the body made unavoidable demands. Without much thought, his feet led him to the elevator. He leaned against the back wall, head tilted back and eyes closed as he felt the assent begin. 

It didn’t take long before the lab doors were sliding open in front of him and the pounding music that Tony prefered rattled through Steve’s head. He cringed slightly and bit back a sigh of relief when the volume lowered--just  _ slightly _ \--as he entered.

“Hey Cap,” Tony called from somewhere in the depths.

“Hey Tony,” he answered back, making his way towards the couch against the wall and dropping heavily onto it leaning forward in the seat to rest his elbows on his knees. “You beckoned?”

“J’ told me you were up and destroying bags,” Tony commented idly as he emerged from some far corner of the lab, eyes locked on the tablet in front of him. Steve took a moment to admire the seamless way he managed to move through the cluttered workshop without looking up from his work. His movements were graceful and easy to overlook if one wasn’t really looking.

It was safe to say that Steve was always ‘really looking’ and therefore found himself caught up in admiration of the other man’s mannerisms more often than he was comfortable admitting. He cleared his throat and forced a shrug, “Did you need me for something?”

“Figured we’re both up and generally unproductive tonight, might as well be unproductive together,” Tony replied with a shrug that looked as forced as Steve’s. Dark eyes broke from the tablet and locked onto the blonde on the couch. Steve shifted slightly at the sudden intensity of the stare and he knew his face was likely reddening if the heat he felt was any indication. Tony gave a slight grin at the sight and moved to drop onto his back on the other end of the couch, swinging his legs up to drop his socked feet into Steve’s lap.

Steve quickly sat back, pulling his arms out of the way in surprise. A quick glance at Tony confirmed that he was still seemingly latched onto the tablet. After a brief hesitation, Steve wrapped one hand lightly around an ankle and slowly began pressing and stroking his thumb into the arch of his foot. He bit back a smile at the groan the pressure drew and kept his eyes on the foot in his hand rather than look up at the genius himself. 

“That’s it, you’re hired,” Tony groaned. 

Steve huffed a small laugh and let his hands keep working as he shifted his attention, “What’re you working on?”

“Nothing, actually,” Tony frowned, posture starting to stiffen up again, Steve counteracted it with a slight increase of pressure with his thumbs and grinned when it caused Tony to all but melt back into the couch. The tablet dropped from his hold and onto his abdomen and Tony laced his fingers together against his chest. “Started going through a bunch of concept ideas but nothing was clicking tonight. Can’t tell you how annoying it is not to be able to focus on any of it.”

“I can imagine,” Steve winced sympathetically. Tony was the kind of person that always had to be busy. Always buzzing with energy and working on dozens of things at once, his mind always active even when a project wasn’t actually under his hands. For him to not be able to focus would undoubtedly be rough. Steve absently switched his hands to the neglected foot and repeated his ministrations there.

“So,” Tony began, drawing out the word thoughtfully. “How many bags did you go through before J got your attention?”

Steve froze, mind scrambling to come up with a half-way decent answer that was distracting enough to change the conversation. He eyed Tony hesitantly and was met with a pointedly arched brow raised in challenge. A heavy sigh escaped leaving Steve to sink into the back of the couch, pausing long enough to ensure that his hands were still careful in the pressure used. “Just one,” he finally admitted.

“Just one?” Tony repeated, studying him intently again as though looking for untruth.

“Didn’t really have the motivation to deal with any more,” Steve shrugged awkwardly. He didn’t bother asking how Tony knew. The answer was pretty obvious considering that JARVIS had passed the summons to him in the gym. 

“What about you?” Steve asked. “What’s keeping you from focusing?”

“I’m not sure but I don’t like it,” Tony frowned in a way that was so near a pout that Steve couldn’t resist the fond smile crossing his own if he put all his effort into it. Tony nudged his thigh with the foot not being held in Steve’s steady grip. “Tell me a story, Cap. Something fun.”

“A story, huh?” Steve frowned contemplatively, eyes dropping to watch his hands work the feet in his lap as he ran through his memory for something and a fond grin slowly crossed his expression as childhood memories surfaced. “We didn’t really have a whole lot, growing up. It was just Ma and me. She was a nurse. Worked lots of long hours. Which gave me more than enough time to find trouble. I always was really good at that.”

“So what you’re saying is that nothing’s changed?” Tony quipped, amused.

Steve grinned and bobbed his head in agreement, “S’pose you could say that. Aside from the back alley fights that everyone seems to already know about, I also had a  _ really _ hard time walking away from challenges.”

“ _ Had _ , huh?”

“Hush, Tony,” Steve mock-scolded, lightly squeezing the ankle in his grasp. At some point his hand had found bare skin rather than the pant leg and sock that had buffered the touch previously. Tony hadn’t said anything and showed no sign of discomfort so Steve chose to follow his lead, fingers drawing idle patterns on the warm skin. 

“ _ Anyway _ ,” Steve continued. “I had a hard time backing down from challenges. Bucky always knew that about me, not that  _ he _ was ever any better, but I have to say he was really creative. I think you know that before the serum I had a whole list of health issues. That included being almost entirely deaf in my left ear and not-so-great hearing in my right.” 

Steve couldn’t help the widening of his grin as he told the story. “Buck decided it would be entertaining if I acted as though my hearing completely went. Of course, I couldn’t pull that on Ma. Or his family. But teachers? Neighbors? I managed to keep it going for a week before Ma finally caught on and forced me to go door-to-door apologizing to every single person. Though, in hindsight, I think he did it to catch a break. If I ‘couldn’t’ hear then I couldn’t take one offense or another and end up getting my ass kicked. Probably the most peaceful week he had since he met me, actually.”

“So what you’re saying is that he had to trick you into behaving yourself,” Tony quipped with an amused grin. Steve felt his face flush and he shrugged sheepishly. His mind trailed off into the bittersweet memories. He missed them. More than anyone he left in the past he missed Bucky and his mother the most. 

Tony nudged him again with the foot not being held and when Steve met his gaze he found a softened smile and Steve squeezed affectionately in response. Settling more comfortably into the couch and setting his hands to work carefully into the muscles in Tony’s calves, Steve found himself speaking freely. Sharing story after story from before the ice, making a point to tell more of the lighter ones just to get more of those grins.

Steve realized that he would do a lot for just one of those smiles.


End file.
